It’s not every day that a hitter mired in a deep funk gets dropped into the cleanup spot. However, Joe Torre wanted to get Bernie Williams’ smoking bat into the No. 3 spot last night that he batted Tino Martinez fourth against Mets right-hander Rick Reed.

“It’s not as much as hitting Tino cleanup, it’s more batting Bernie third,” Torre said. “He is swinging well and this gets him up there in the first inning and [we’ll] see what happens.”

Williams started last night’s action on a 30-for-65 (.462) tear and has played himself into serious All-Star consideration. Martinez was at the other end of the spectrum, trying to fight his way out of a 2-for-26 (.077) slide. Both hits were homers against the Expos last Wednesday. Going back further, Martinez had 14 hits in the last 94 at-bats, a .149 pace.

“I thought the other day when he hit the two home runs, especially the one off the left-hander … but it looks like he is feeling for the ball,” Torre said of Martinez. “We will hit extra on Tuesday [in Detroit] and he will work on it.”

Martinez spent time yesterday checking out his swing on the high-tech video machine. However, Torre said too much tape isn’t always the best way to go about snapping out of a slump.

“Sometimes too much of that stuff crosses your eyes,” Torre said. “He seems to be feeling his way.”

Scott Brosius ended May with an alarming 11 errors and nobody really knew what happened to the former Gold Glove third baseman. However, since then Brosius had made only one error and going into last night’s action had turned in several defensive gems against the Mets.

“He is the same guy, he is just not making errors,” Torre said of Brosius, who snapped an 0-for-21 slide Friday night. “To me, defense is a lot like offense, it’s timing. He seems to be in a little better rhythm right now. Again, when you make so many errors you aren’t used to making, you have a tendency to start thinking about it.”

In a perfect world, Torre would have liked to keep Mike Stanton from entering last night’s game after using the lefty reliever in the previous three games for three innings. However, he didn’t have the same feelings about Mariano Rivera, who had pitched in three straight, too.

“I would like to stay away from Stanton,” Torre said. “Mo [Rivera] could pitch again. Stanton said he was fine, but I would like to stay away from him. I would probably use [Randy] Choate in a similar situation.”